Tonight The Bachelor NZ finally launches, and they’ve saved the mystery hunk’s identity for a big reveal. Lewis Van Den Berg-Shaw speculates about who might be dishing out the roses.

The Bachelor finally makes its debut at 7.30pm tonight. Despite a recent announcement of all the competitors, and an excellent investigation on this very website, we are yet to receive an unequivocal official confirmation of the hunk’s identity. He is some speculation as to the various possibilities.

The Best Boy
Realising they can get away with using the torso of a rescue dummy for their promo but maybe not an entire season, MediaWorks panics and ropes in the production’s Best Boy for the title role based solely on their job description. Despite a sloppy rebrand as “The BEST Bachelor Yet!”, New Zealand isn’t ready for a 57 year old chain-smoking racist from Temuka to find love onscreen, and the show is pulled faster than a stillbirth from a sulking ewe.

Three Seven-year-olds Hidden in an Overcoat
In a stunning, Joe Millionaire-style finale, the Bachelor is revealed as a set of home-schooled triplets sitting on each others shoulders. The kids, having just lost both their parents a year ago, must make an impassioned plea to the lucky contestants. The winner is given the choice of adopting the children as their own, or leaving them to their fate and receiving the consolation prize of a 2015 Kia Sportage.

A Mirror
The only one who will see them as they truly are. The mirror is silent, beautiful, intense. It passes no judgement and harbours no secrets. It is the perfect partner.

Their Own Father
The Bachelor seems eerily familiar to all the contestants. The bridge of their nose, the way they tilt their head to the right when they’re pretending to laugh. Did they hear a sad resentment in the Bachelor’s voice? In the final live episode, two dogs walk into shot and start having sex on camera. It is the greatest event in New Zealand television history.

No One
A single camera follows the contestants as they wait under a leafless tree in Albert Park. The contestants keep starting to suggest a particular box dye, but can never remember the name or where they got it from. Mike Puru arrives to tell them the Bachelor will not be coming that evening, but surely tomorrow. The next day he is chased out of the park after the contestants realise he’ll just repeat himself. They angrily resolve to go back to the hotel, but don’t.

The single episode lasts for 4 hours. Everyone watching pretends to get it, but doesn’t.

The Bachelor premieres on TV3 tonight at 7.30pm